


quiet hymns

by kuroopaisen



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Depression, F/M, M/M, Working Through Some Things Via Fanfiction, anyway i hope this helps you if you need it :(, honestly just a cathartic fic, i actually wrote it a while ago but now felt like a good time to put it on ao3, like very direct depiction, please don't read this if it'll trigger you :(, there's some christian imagery? there's no direct references to faith but--
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:33:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28108623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuroopaisen/pseuds/kuroopaisen
Summary: kuroo can’t fix your problems, but he can be there for you.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	quiet hymns

You can’t sleep. 

Kuroo lies next to you, his chest rising and falling with a steady rhythm. He dozed off hours ago; he’s never had trouble sleeping. He’d been spooning you when he first went to sleep, but you’d rolled him onto his back and away from you about half an hour ago. Part of you just felt suffocated. Another part of you felt like you didn’t deserve his warmth. Not when you feel like this.

Those same few thoughts play over and over, an echoing hymn of your most pervasive flaws. 

Ungrateful. Worthless. Unlovable.

Little fears, little inadequacies sprint through your mind, circling round and screaming at the top of their lungs. These demons will not rest, even in the quiet hours of the morning. You don’t dare check your phone, in fear of the number that will stare back at you.

And things had been going so well. You’d felt like you were on track.

But, it feels like you’ve been slipping. Like everything you’ve built towards is beginning to crumble, the flimsy veneer you’d placed over your own inadequacy tearing like the veil in the temple.

Everything was falling through your fingers. You couldn’t stay on top of university, no matter how hard you tried. You keep losing track of time, the days bleeding into an endless expanse of grey. You can’t even text your friends without feeling like they hate you; they’ve done nothing, said nothing to make you feel that way. You _know_ it’s all projection, that these thoughts have no foundation.

But knowing is not the same as believing. You’ve known for a while. You’ve tried to practice a whole range of coping strategies, of fighting back against your own thoughts. But in the darkest hours of the morning, the hopelessness always sets in. You always feel most unlovable at 2 AM.

You were heralded as having such _promise_ , too. Told that you were destined for ‘great things’, that your bright mind would take you to places you could barely even imagine. Your parents lament the loss of the ‘bright young thing’ you used to be, eight years old and untouched by misery.

What sort of parent let their child feel like a failure, simply because they had some demons? You want to find that joy you used to have, to make space for it in your heart. But it’s hard. Instead, it feels like you’re wading through purgatory, reaching for heaven while the demons grab at your ankles.

That promise was gone, now. Flung to the wind. You felt little more than worthless, these days.

You still don’t know where it started. It’s been half a decade, now. You don’t remember much of your childhood or your adolescence, but most of it is marred by melancholy. Your adolescence and early adulthood have been spent in darkness, fighting against a self-loathing that’s left room for little else.

It’s a cycle. Every time you drag yourself back up through the eight circles, you beat yourself back down. It’s on you, every time. Sometimes you wonder if you’re strong enough to fight off the sadness for much longer.

And yet, you feel guilty. You’ve been blessed. Had opportunities. A roof over your head, an education, a loving boyfriend. Feeling this way is _wrong_. Ungrateful. An expression of privilege.

You don’t know where you went wrong. When you started to rot inside, losing yourself to your own tempest.

You’re young – so, _so_ young – and yet you feel like you’re past your peak. That everyone has passed you by. That they’re all moving on, climbing higher, making something of themselves. And you’re here, sat at the dinner table with the same demons you met when you were fifteen.

Ungrateful. Worthless. Unlovable.

You can’t find the strength to stop the tears.

You cover your mouth, hoping to choke back your sobs as quietly as you can. You don’t want to disturb him.

But these demons are stronger than you. They ring in your ears, prick at your eyes, scratch at your throat.

There are darker thoughts, too. Angrier voices, goading and taunting and coercing. You don’t want to entertain them, to let them take up space in your mind. Perhaps that’s why you’re so exhausted, these days; you’ve spent so much energy pushing them back that you don’t have the reserves left to do anything else.

“Hey.” His voice is soft, laden with sleep and concern.

_Shit_. You’d woken him up.

“I’m sorry,” you croak, smoothing a hand over his bare chest.

“Don’t apologise,” he murmurs, moving his hand over yours and giving it a gentle squeeze. “What’s wrong?”

You shake your head.

There’s a lot you can’t – won’t – say to him. Things that you don’t want to burden him with, things that would give him reason to worry. That’s the last thing you want to do – worry him. You don’t know why you matter to him. Why he bothers with someone like you.

“Hey.” He’s persistent, as always. He shifts onto his side, the bed

He’s right _here_ , and yet you feel so lonely. So far away.

A hand on your cheek. You brave a look at his face.

He’s looking at you so tenderly, his expression so vulnerable and full of affection. Affection that he’s given you time and time again over the years. Affection you feel you don’t deserve.

“I love you.”

It’s so honest, so sincere. He loves you. Somehow, you’ve gotten this wonder of a man to love you. To cherish you. To care about you. And he’d been here for the past few years, holding your hand and telling you that you were one of the best things that had ever happened to him.

How had you fooled him so well?

Your words catch in your throat, carrying the weight of unspoken sins.

“I don’t deserve you,” you choke. You don’t let the moment sit, rolling over to bury your face into his chest.

“That’s not true,” he murmurs, wrapping an arm around your waist.

You press yourself against him, seeking his warmth, his light, his comfort. You don’t feel like you deserve it; but you need it.

“I love you.” His voice is gravelly, and you can tell he’s barely awake. And yet in this barely lucid state, he still seeks you out. Still gives you comfort.

You take a deep breath, feeling it shudder through your body . “I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t apologise.” He always says that. No matter what, he doesn’t want you to apologise. Not for feeling like this.

He’s so warm. He lifts his leg up and drapes it across you, running his fingers along your spine. “Do you want to talk about it?”

You think about it for a moment. “Not tonight.”

“You sure?”

You nod, pressing a kiss to his chest. “I just want to go to sleep.”

You know he wants to support you, to hear you out and fight these demons with you. But you had to speak to someone else about this. Someone who knew what to do. Someone who would help you love him with everything you have, unfettered by the demons clawing at your ankles.

“I’ll stay up with you,” he hums, running his fingers through your hair. “Until you fall asleep.”

“You don’t have to do that,” you choke.

“I want to,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “I’m here for you, okay? And I’m not going anywhere.”

He’s been with you through everything, never wavering. He’s always reaches out a hand in the darkness, looking at you with nothing but sympathy and adoration. ‘ _I’m here_.’ That’s his hymn, the one he repeats over and over again. Sometimes you try to push him away, afraid that he’s wasting his time with you. Feeling that, if given the chance, he could do better.

But he stays. He gives you everything he can. And when the day is over, he tells you that he’s grateful; that he feels honoured that you would trust him like this. That you would let him take up space in your fragile heart. That even when you push him away, he knows it’s because you’re afraid. He tells you that, if he has anything to do with it, you won’t ever be alone.

Kuroo Tetsurou has never once made you feel worthless. Never once made you feel ungrateful. Never once made you feel unlovable. 

Maybe you don’t deserve him. But you don’t know what you’d do without him.

“Tetsu?” Your voice is frail, delicate. You don’t trust it to express what you want to say.

“Hm?”

“I love you.”

He smiles, his golden eyes roaming your face. “I’m a very lucky man.”

He means it.

He can’t fix you. He’s only human, and he wants to do _more._ To soothe the ache in your heart. And yet, he knows he can’t; it’s not his battle. All he can do is lie here, by your side, doing his best to provide you with some small comfort.

He’s here. He’s with you. He’s not going anywhere.

And maybe, if you can make it through the evening, you can make peace with the fact that you’re not alone. That you won’t _be_ alone; because there’s something important that you have to remember.

Someone loves you.


End file.
